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When reading the article posted on Paternal Post Partum my intial response was that it was a little far fetched. As I continued to read it however, it became more believable. I do see why some don’t buy into the idea. For one, men probably keep those emotions more to themselves than women do because of the current societal norms. They don’t want to be viewed as dramatic or weak or that they couldn’t handle something that millions of men experience without side effects. Because of this, it can just reinforce the problem because they feel as though they cannot ask for help. Additionally, I found it interesting that in this article they mentioned that maternal and paternal post partum are usually connected. That is to say that if the father is suffering from depression, it is likely that the mother is as well. I think because of this it is possible for many men to be discouraged to admit they have the problem firstly because they don’t want to seem weak in any way. Secondly, they may want to be the one that is emotionally supporting their partner so they don’t want to admit that they are also feeling the same emotions and struggling with being a new parent.

As far as the connection between healing and belief go, I would argue they are closely related. In my personal experience, I have noticed that attitude does make a difference in how a person feels. In the video, “Placebo:Cracking the Code,” this became even more evident. There were multiple examples of placebo’s having positive effects on individual’s and their illnesses. The patient who had a knee surgery that was in fact, a placebo, and who no longer experiences pain shows the importance of outlook in order to heal to the best of one’s ability.

Taking the risk of looking like a real jerk I’m going to say that it still looks a bit far-fetched to me. The author also describes how “they” were pregnant. I have three children and I guarantee you at no point was I ever pregnant. I know this doesn’t sound nice but that’s just how I view things. Postpartum depression is caused by the sudden loss of hormones after the release of the woman’s placenta. To call the depression a father might go through after having a child postpartum depression is not accurate. Having a baby is a huge life event and especially when it’s the first child. I remember feeling confused. I didn’t know how to take care of a baby. I now had to suddenly change myself and transform myself into the fathering role. What is the father role? I was no longer the most important person in the world to my wife. That one is huge by the way. No longer being at the top of the pyramid in the eyes of your wife did affect me and with every child the father’s position seems only to get lower. Right now I’m just above the dog and I’m only given the scraps of affection left over from what the kids haven’t consumed.

This sudden life change can bring anxiety and depression but I don’t feel it is fair to women to call it postpartum depression. I think a man trying to be diagnosed with postpartum depression is attempting to validate his depression and receive all the rights and privileges as a woman who is actually suffering from a biological disorder. The man could be suffering from depression and this would only become worse is his partner is suffering from postpartum depression, but it should be treated as depression and nothing more.

My own personal biomedical and cultural perceptions of paternal prenatal postpartum depression are that I find it hard to believe that is something that could be considered a medical condition. Firstly, while it takes a man and a woman to become pregnant, the woman is the one whom is pregnant, and her body is the one that goes through all of the physical changes that goes along with pregnancy, as well as the hormonal ones. For women, after you give birth, there is a huge change in hormonal levels once they give birth, which brings on the possibility to bring on post partum depression. For men, while they deal with the stressors and life changing decisions that have to do with a child, they aren’t having any change in hormones, which is what happens to women. While it is possible for a man to go through depression with all of these things, I don’t feel as though it can be considered post partum depression. I feel as though these views come from cultural perspectives, especially since men are much more involved and play bigger parts in their children’s lives than they have in the past, thus allowing to integrate the term post partum, to include new-fathers.

The idea that paternal post-partum depression is a real medical condition is hard for me to accept. After analyzing why I initially felt like this I realized that if a medical disorder doesn’t have a concrete scientifically proven biochemical cause it is hard for me to believe that the disorder is real. I believe this idea has been engraved inside psyche because as a result of my pursuit in the scientific field; since the core belief within any science is there is always a cause to an effect. Lastly, the most popular sector of our health care system in the U.S. is the biomedical sector in which it is implied that to every medical disorder there is a biological cause whether or not it has been scientifically proven yet or not. Therefore, this seems to further support my feeling of skeptism towards post-partum depression.

I decided to read the article in order to determine if there was any medical/biological explanation for this paternal post-partum depression, and came up short handed. Maternal post-partum depression makes more sense to me because I always viewed this disorder as a direct result of the hormonal changes going on inside the woman’s body during and after pregnancy. Also, this idea of men being depressed after the birth of their child may be hard for me to grasp because for the most part the men that I have known didn’t consume their selves with the preparation for their child as much as the man in the article, “Depression in Men: A Dad’s Story of Male Post-Partum Depression” had described. Most likely these men that I am referring to did prepare emotionally for the birth of their child, but weren’t able to express their emotions, due to the fear of being viewed as weak. This idea of emotional men being weak is a preconceived stereotype that is very prominent within the American culture which may also contribute to my disbelief towards the disorder.

My own biomedical and cultural perception of paternal post-partum depression is that it is not a real medication condition. However, I do believe that maternal post-partum depression can have some type of link of making the father depressed as well since he lives in house and environment that his wife resides in. To some extent I do agree with you that men in our society tend to bottle up there emotions because they do not want to be seen “dramatic or weak”. However, I think women are the more targeted group to experience post-partum depression because they have to experience all the task that reflects being a mother in our society. Not only do women have to give birth to a child, they also have to take care of that child and home 24/7 after birth. In essence mothers do not get a day off. Especially, when fathers work outside the home. For some women being cooped up inside a house each day for an entire week and month can be very depressing. Men on the other hand experience different outlets outside the home. Usually, men are not the parent who stays home. Men sometimes do not have the responsibilities of cooking meals, cleaning the house, doing other chores and being at home withe their child all the time. This is why I mainly find it hard to believe that men suffer from paternal post-partum depression. Now that I have gone through the course materials I think these views come from our culture medical field wanting to classify and categorize every thing that may seem out of the norm as an illness or disorder. Society paints this picture that a man is suppose to be strong, and the protector. When paternal post-partum depression is thrown into the mix I believe this illness is a way for men to classify themselves as suffering from an a real illness. it gives them an excuse so that society does not perceive them as weak.